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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26246143">The Positioning of Our Players</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinascribbles/pseuds/marinascribbles'>marinascribbles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>An Eternal Chess Match with God [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Suicide mention</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:14:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,268</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26246143</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinascribbles/pseuds/marinascribbles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the loss of Chloe, Lucifer meets a distraction. His match, maybe? Even beyond that, who or what is she?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>An Eternal Chess Match with God [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906633</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Positioning of Our Players</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>lol so i couldn't get this out of my head so here goes</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The days started to blur together for the devil. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And through his determination not to have a routine but a free reign to do whatever he wanted in the wake of his own meaningless existence, he had developed a routine. It was simple, but it was a routine nonetheless. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Wake up. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Separate his limbs from whoever had fallen into bed with him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Drink. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Shower. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Drink.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At some point, the person or persons that had fallen into his bed would trickle out and down the elevator. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Drink. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He didn't have the energy or attention span to read anything, and he didn't have the energy to watch anything either. For those hours before he descended down to his nightclub, he sat down at his piano bench and idly tapped out melodies that he half-remembered.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Drink.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At some point, he would find a suit and amble downstairs to the thumping of the music and drink and dance and find another person or persons to share his bed. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He would drink some more.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He would end the day asleep. (The argument could be made that it was by the grace of God, but what had his father done for him lately?)</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">All of this he did on autopilot. All of this he did to a drunk enough stupor so that the only thing he had to think about was the thing right in front of him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Today was different, and the difference started when he was in the middle of his undesignated/designated time in front of his piano keys. The elevator dinged open. Were he of sound mind, which he hadn’t been in months, he would have turned and offered his intruder more of his attention, but he simply couldn't be bothered. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Go,” he groaned. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It did not stop the intruder from walking further into his apartment and leaning against the piano. He still didn't look up, though he could see Maze from the corner of his eyes. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"Are you going to offer anything constructive or are you going to just stay there and annoy me?" </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m just waiting to see what your blood alcohol level is at this point,” she pressed. Were it any other person, she would have sounded utterly hostile. But because it was Maze, Lucifer was able to discern that it was concern heavily wrapped in hostility. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"Is that all?" </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"No," she sighed. “Just came to let you know that a pipe burst at Lux so we're closed tonight.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Lucifer stopped his idle tapping and glared at the demon. "When were you going to tell me?" he asked. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"What do you think I'm doing right now?" His glare didn't drop, but she would not be here if she was not one to keep and match his angry moods."What use would it be to tell you that the club did flood? What would you have done? Don't act like you haven't been checked out since-"</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She was cut off by the slam of keys and the creak of wood. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"If you value your life, don't keep speaking," he growled. They both knew that it was an empty threat, but she stopped anyway. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He stood up from his piano bench with his empty glass in hand and went to pour himself another. She beat him to the bar and grabbed the glass before he could. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are you done?" he asked. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Mazikeen threw the glass bottle to the floor. “Are <em>you</em> done?" she countered. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He didn't dignify her with an answer. Rather, he left his tumbler on the counter and left her by the wet bar. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He wasn't sure when Maze left, and he wasn't sure when the sun had set. Time moved in slow and fast ways since he'd dedicated himself to this self-loathing version of his life. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Since he no longer had the option of diving into oblivion at his night club, he ambled his way with a new bottle of whiskey and a tumbler to the balcony. The city of Los Angeles winked back at him. Through the haze of his drunken stupor, he remembered a time when he would look out at the city and rejoice that he had climbed and stayed out of hell. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When he looked out at the landscape now, he wasn't sure if hell was here or below him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Lucifer stretched his wings out to match his arms.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><em>The city of angels</em>, he thought with a dark laugh. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He was so high above the ground here, and it was the drink coursing through his veins that prompted it, but maybe he could fall wings prone. End his miserable existence. Maybe he could fall and self-preservation would take over and his wings would catch the air saving him just in time. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">With another dark laugh, he thought about the implementation of the scientific method. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">
    <em>Question: where I to drop from this building, would I die or save myself?</em>
  </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">
    <em>Hypothesis: if I were to fall from this building and land on the hard earth below me, then I would not die because as God's least favorite son, I have been cursed with immortality. </em>
  </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">With the experiment portion of his science looming, he gripped the railing and took several deep breaths. Finally, he made up his mind. The synapses had fired to swing his legs over the railing, but it was a shock to his system that stopped them in their tracks. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In the wake of it, he took a few steps back and trained his eyes on the green beam of light that stretched toward the sky. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">For maybe the first time in his life, Lucifer looked at something with the wonder and the curiosity of seeing something for the first time in his life. And it unsettled him. He who had been born almost before time. He who had been the cause of the original sin and had witnessed the first murder. And this green light had shocked him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Anger and fury quickly replaced wonder and curiosity. Lucifer stretched out his great, white wings and took off toward the sky and the source of the green light. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">o0o</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She felt the heat of the fire before she woke up. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It manifested as a dream, and as was the typical fashion of a dream, she was, at once, sure and not sure of everything that she witnessed. In one corner of her dream, she was in hell and trapped in the confines of her own making. She struggled and pulled at her constraints, but it kept her there. When asked again, she would say that her dream was an impressive torture where she was a burrito being held captive in an active microwave. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When she snapped her eyes open, it wasn't far from either dream truth. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">From inside her tent, the forest fires were close enough that she could see everything with perfect clarity as if it were day and not the middle of the night. Though it was January, she was sweating in her sleeping bag. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Anastasia acted fast.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ana didn't grab anything on the way out. <em>Not even shoes</em>, she noticed as she ran away from the fire. Twigs and rocks bit into her feet, but she kept running as fast as she could, desperate to escape the fire that was quite literally hot on her heels. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In her mad dash through the forest, she took a wrong fueled by panic. She stopped when she ran into the side of a cliff. The fire was closing in on her. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She turned and the fire had chased her until it was only a quarter-mile away, and as hungry as it was, it would be only a while until it was right in front of her. The fire would swallow her up as well. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But the ease and comfort of knowing that you were knocking on death's door did not settle into her veins. The adrenaline and panic that she woke up with only intensified. Her heart beat so fast. She was sure that it was going to beat right out of her chest. It acted as a loose train, and derail it did. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In a moment, time stood still. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The forest fire that ate its way through the forest halted. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A force that at once existed within her mind and outside of it took over her body and she arched her back. The energy of life ran zipped down every nerve she had and came out through her fingertips and toes. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ana could no longer see the fire or the forest around her. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A bright green light filled her vision. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When the light was gone and the energy that pulsed through her veins had dissipated to lingering sparks, Ana realized that she was soaked head to toe. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Slowly, Ana stood up from the ground with her palm up. In a matter of seconds, her cupped hands were full. This was not a rainstorm. This was a monsoon in the heart of Southern California. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She took a step forward and opened her mouth, a laugh ready to come bubbling out, but it was caught in her throat when a gust of wind knocked her back a step. She had barely caught her bearings when she noticed a man standing in front of her. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He was darkness personified. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The suit he wore nearly swallowed him whole. Ana tried to adjust her eyes just so she could see the outline of it, but it rippled in the darkness. It was at the end of him that Ana saw a bright white pair of wings. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><em>It should have been awe-inspiring</em>, Ana told herself, but the only thing she felt was ice through her veins. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The same feeling of panic and adrenaline came back with a stronger vengeance and she slowly backed up until she was back at the cliff where she started. The monster with the wings -- was he a monster or an angel. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her brain was moving too slow to tell. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The thing with the wings was moving in on her. With each step that he took, he only became more terrifying. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ana was sure that she had died in the fire. Perished as another casualty. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His eyes flashed red, and he growled, "Who are you?" </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As though the red eyes were a portal, Ana was thrown into a smile that rested among the darkness. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The second thing that she noticed was the warmth of her surroundings. It was dark and she was warm. The feeling of home was the strongest thing that she felt. Ana didn't remember the living room that she sat in. She didn't remember the chairs or the fireplace or the pieces that hung on the mantle, but all of them pointed like a compass to home. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ana pulled the mug from her lips and set it in the crook of her crossed legs. Her gaze smoothly passed from the hypnotic dance of the fire -- a tame sort against the one that almost killed her moments, or was it hours ago -- back to the smile against the darkness. The fireplace illuminated the rest of his features. The same features which Ana noticed matched the monster who cornered her in the storm. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She reached her hand out to his and he took it like someone would take a baby bird. He brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And she wasn't scared...or maybe she was but for entirely the wrong reasons. Instead of fear of the man who sat beside her, she was scared because the feeling of home had returned. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And it came from the man who had a smile in the darkness.</span>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p2">o0o</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When he landed, it was in the middle of a monsoon that was not there when he took off.The green light he flew towards was gone. In its place was a girl...a woman...a girl. She was drenched from head to toe, but for the split second that she didn't know he was standing in front of her, he could have sworn that there was a childlike wonder in her eyes at the rain in front of them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She looked up with terror in her eyes and Lucifer pressed her forward until she was backed against a cliff facing. "Who are you?” he said from the deepest parts of his chest. With it, he flashed his eyes red. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Almost as if in response, her eyes answered in a glowing green that was deeper than the pillar that had shot into the sky but close enough to confirm his suspicions. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He was sucked into those eyes like a vortex and taken to a meadow. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’d been there before. Or rather, here. And a hand was pulling him forward. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The woman who had his hand in her grasp faced forward, but he saw the back of her head. Waves of copper cascaded like water. They curled in and around flowers that decorated her crown and wove in and out of braids. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The woman in front of him turned back. A smile formed on her lips when she saw him. And for no particular reason at all, she laughed. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He was back in the storm as quickly as he saw her face, but the face followed him here. It was in front of him, terrified. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Lucifer fell to his knees in front of her. He could feel the mud on his knees, but it was nothing compared to the feeling that he could not name that burrowed in the center of his chest. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He called out her name as he knew it, "Kora."</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her eyebrows pulled together, and she stood taller. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Who?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lemme know what y'all think,,,,,,,also tom ellis amirite laydeez</p></blockquote></div></div>
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